


L'amour, c'est comme la guerre

by irisbleufic



Series: Anthology 'Verse (& Related Errata) [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Correspondence, Don’t copy to another site, Emails, Epistolary, Flashbacks, Idiots in Love, Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Readable As a Stand-Alone Or As An Easter Egg for Anthology 'Verse, Science Boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 08:51:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18753052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: You seemed sad in your last message.  I couldn’t tell why, so I went digging.  Please don’t do the virtual equivalent of hitting me with your cane, okay, but I searched the UK papers and found the obit.  Jesus, I’m sorry.  I can tell you were close.  Opposite of me and Mom.Enough with the gut-spilling.  Stuff your face and chug that last glass.  Elijah won’t mind.From my seder to yours,Dr. Newton Geiszler





	L'amour, c'est comme la guerre

**Author's Note:**

> First published in [**_The Last Line of Defense_**](https://newmannzine.bigcartel.com/product/zine), a new Newt/Hermann zine, in May 2019.

_To: h.gottlieb@damtp.cam.ac.uk_  
_From: newtgeiszler@gmail.com_  
_Date: 26-Mar-2013 21:42_  
_Subject: Re: Re: And I once partied with a shamrock on my face, what do you care?_

_Dear Dr. Gottlieb,_

_Chag Pesach kasher v’sameach.  Koshern un freilichen Pesach?  I never asked if Yiddish is a thing with your family.  Sure is with mine.  That’s all I’m hearing from Dad and Illia tonight, constant reminders of how badly I speak it.  FML, why’d I take the train home._

_Listen, sorry I didn’t answer your message on St. Pat’s.  It was fuck o’clock here, and I was racing a deadline.  Believe it or not, I stick to them when I can help it.  Yes, partying was involved.  No, there wasn’t a shamrock mask thingie this time, and double no, I’d never set foot in a frat house.  My students are classier than that.  Ich verspreche dir._

_Uh, Dieterich sounds like a riot.  Are you with family for the holiday, too?  Have fun with that._

_Don’t think I’m weird for saying this, because you already think I’m weird for enough things, but like . . . slow down, dude.  Sorry.  Can I call you dude?  Well, too late.  As much as I appreciate you spilling your guts on life, the universe, and everything (see what I did there?), I’m not ready to give up the gossip.  Bad enough I told you about my shitty Yiddish, you feel?_

_You seemed sad in your last message.  I couldn’t tell why, so I went digging.  Please don’t do the virtual equivalent of hitting me with your cane, okay, but I searched the UK papers and found the obit.  Jesus, I’m sorry.  I can tell you were close.  Opposite of me and Mom._

_Enough with the gut-spilling.  Stuff your face and chug that last glass.  Elijah won’t mind._

_From my seder to yours,_  
_Dr. Newton Geiszler_

_*_

_To: newtgeiszler@gmail.com_  
_From: h.gottlieb@damtp.cam.ac.uk_  
_Date: 30-Mar-2013 10:11_  
_Subject: At least change the subject line next time, you heathen!_

_Dear Dr. Geiszler,_

_Occupatio is not your strong suit, so I suggest you cut the Humanities claptrap and accept what is right in front of you.  We are well past formalities now.  I had rather not speak of my mother’s passing, but since you forced the issue: yes.  Maria Gottlieb, Z”L, died just over a month ago._

_That aside—or, rather, not really—my mother spoke Yiddish, and the remainder of us do not._

_It is a curious sensation, to be so furious with you, but adamantly unwilling to request a phone conversation.  I’m not ready to ‘give it up’, as you put it, either.  So enough._

_However, I’m unspeakably relieved that your pseudo-Irish shenanigans did not extend to any unprecedented social gaffes.  Heaven knows I should like to stumble across photographic evidence of your past green-faced transgressions, the better to exercise leverage._

_(That is to say, I wouldn’t hesitate to blackmail you into working with me on this paper.)_

_In sincerest annoyance,_  
_Dr. Hermann Gottlieb_

_*_

_To: h.gottlieb@damtp.cam.ac.uk_  
_From: newtgeiszler@gmail.com_  
_Date: 08-Apr-2013 14:45_  
_Subject: Yom Ha’Shoah is a bitch of a holiday.  How’s that?_

_Dear Dr. Gottlieb,_

_Sorry I haven’t written in a week.  Also sorry to write today of all days, because fuck Nazis._

_Can we stop being morbid for like five seconds?  I really hate this trend.  The thought of you trawling the web for proof of my St. Pat’s dumbassery is A+ entertainment.  Good luck with your search, man.  Is there an app for that?  If you think I put that shit on Instagram, guess again._

_I know what goddamn occupatio is.  I took enough English courses to kill a metaphorical horse.  I also took advanced German lit seminars for easy credits.  How do you like my doctorates now?_

_Blackmail?  Gasp.  I am agog, I am aghast; is Dr. Gottlieb growing a sense of humor at last?_

_(Look what you’ve done.  You’ve taken a perfectly good polymath and given him interdisciplinary performance anxiety, that’s what.  FFS, yeah.  Let’s collaborate.)_

_Looking forward to this,_  
_Dr. Newton Geiszler_

_*_

_To: newtgeiszler@gmail.com_  
_From: h.gottlieb@damtp.cam.ac.uk_  
_Date: 15-Apr-2013 20:50_  
_Subject: Newton, the news says that your city_

_is up in smoke, every news outlet from here to the Continent is covering Boston, wait, no, covering Cambridge, your Cambridge an ocean away from my own so unfairly quiet_

_I shouldn’t have chided you so harshly, I should never have refused to say_

_Please tell me you’re clear of it.  Please tell me as soon as you’re able._

_Concerned,_  
_Hermann_

_*_

_To: h.gottlieb@damtp.cam.ac.uk_  
_From: newtgeiszler@gmail.com_  
_Date: 15-Apr-2013 15:55_  
_Subject: Re: Newton, the news says that your city_

_I’m fine.  I was teaching the whole time it happened.  My phone had like 47 texts from Dad and Illia as soon as I got out, though, which really sucks for me._

_Downtown’s a fucking zoo, and that’s normal for the Marathon without a terrorist attack in the mix.  Seriously, this is nuts.  Where’s my bus?  Can I come crash at yours?_

_J/K_

_Hermann, I’m okay.  I have no idea what the story is, but I know that much.  Breathe for me?_

_Back at you,_  
_Newt_

_*_

_To: newtgeiszler@gmail.com_  
_From: h.gottlieb@damtp.cam.ac.uk_  
_Date: 18-Apr-2013 17:54_  
_Subject: L’amour, c’est comme la guerre_

_Doctor Geiszler,_

_You're a thorn in my side, albeit a useful one. Let it not be said that hardship does not instill in us the resolve to do nothing save what essentially must be done._

_I congratulate you for having taught me a lesson in the effective application of reckless bravery, and via example, no less. We have endured a harsh winter, and, in some respects, an even harsher spring.  It not in my nature to share the particulars of heartache with strangers._

_Yet I’m keenly aware that you are, although not someone I count inseparably close, anything but._

_**[[ . . . . ]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075605/chapters/3745766) ** _


End file.
